DOCSLIB.ORG

Constantinou2014.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Constantinou2014.Pdf This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Demeter in Hellenistic Poetry: Religion and Poetics Maria Constantinou A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to Classics Department School of History, Classics and Archaeology The University of Edinburgh 2014 Declaration This thesis has been composed by the candidate, the work is the candidate’s own and the work has not been submitted for the award of any other degree or professional qualification. ii Abstract The thesis examines the presence of Demeter in Hellenistic poetry, while it also considers the way contemporary Demeter cult informs the poetic image of the goddess. My research focuses on certain poems in which Demeter is in the foreground, that is, Philitas’ Demeter, Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, Theocritus’ Idyll 7, and Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter, supplemented by the epilogue of Callimachus’ Hymn to Apollo and Philicus’ Hymn to Demeter. The first part of my study is dedicated to the presentation of the evidence for Demeter’s role in the religious life of places that are directly or indirectly associated with the poems I discuss, that is, Egypt, Cyrene, Cos and Cnidus, in order to establish the cultic and historical framework within which Demeter’s literary figure appears. In the second part I closely examine the poems that feature Demeter and conclude that the goddess and motifs closely linked with her have poetological significance, which supports the view that Demeter functions as a symbol of poetics. Furthermore, I examine the social elements in the narrative of the most extant Hellenistic poem on Demeter, i.e. Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter, and propose that these reflect Demeter’s role as a ‘social’ goddess. iii Acknowledgments I would like to express my deepest gratitude to people who have contributed to the completion of this thesis. First and foremost, I am indebted to my parents for the constant encouragement and support they offered me all these years; without them this thesis would not have been possible. I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Stephanie Winder, not only for her academic supervision and guidance, but also for her patience, understanding, moral and intellectual support throughout my MSc and PhD studies. I would also like to express my appreciation to my secondary supervisors, Dr. Richard Rawles and Prof. Douglas Cairns for their encouragement and their useful comments. Morever, I owe thanks to the School of History, Classics and Archaeology of the University of Edinburgh for the funding it provided, both for my Master’s and PhD studies, and for giving me the opportunity to teach at tutorial level, which proved to be a rewarding experience. Furthermore, I would like to thank my thesis examiners, Prof. Gregory Hutchinson and Dr. Donncha O’ Rourke, for their invaluable feedback and advice for a future publication of my thesis. Finally, I am grateful to my friend and colleague Chrysanthi for her continuous encouragement and willingness to read my work, my friend and colleague Lavinia for the support and the constructive discussions on ancient Greek religion and archaeology, as well as my friends Lisa, Stella, Georgia, Petros and Vania for their moral and practical help, especially in the final stages of my PhD. iv Contents Declaration………………………………………………………………… ii Abstract…………………………………………………………………..... iii Acknowledgments………………………………………………………… iv Abbreviations…………………………………………………………….... 1 Introduction……………………………………………………………….. 3 Part I: Demeter in Cult…………………………………………………… 6 Chapter 1: Demeter in Egypt…………………………………………… 7 Chapter 2: Demeter in Cyrene………………………………………….. 39 Chapter 3: Demeter on Cos and Cnidus………………………………… 46 Part II: Demeter in Poetry…………………………………………………. 65 Chapter 4: A Network of Poems on Demeter: Callimachus, Philicus, Philitas and Theocritus……………………………………… 66 Chapter 5: Demeter and Poetics………………………………………… 112 Chapter 6: Demeter and Social Boundaries…………………………….. 171 Conclusions……………………………………………………………...... 201 Bibliography……………………………………………………………..... 203 v Abbreviations A.-B. Austin, C., Bastianini, G. (2002). (eds). Posidippi Pellaei quae supersunt omnia, Milan. Austin Austin, M. M. (2006). The Hellenistic World from Alexander to the Roman Conquest. A Selection of Ancient Sources in Translation2, Cambridge. Burstein Burstein, S. M. (1985). The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII, Cambridge. CA Powell, J. U. (1925). (ed.). Collectanea Alexandrina, Oxford. Consbr. Consbruch, M. (1971). Hephaestionis enchiridion cum commentariis veteribus, Stuttgart. D.-K. Diels, H., Kranz, W. (1972). (eds). Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker I-III, Berlin. Diehl Diehl, E. (1925). Anthologia Lyrica Graeca, Leipzig. ED Segre, M. (1993). Iscrizioni di Cos, Rome. FGrH Jacoby, F. (1923-1958). (ed.). Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker I-IV, Berlin/Leiden. G.-P. Gow, A. S. F., Page, D. L. (1965). (eds). The Greek Anthology. Hellenistic Epigrams, Cambridge. Harder Harder, A. (2012). (ed.). Callimachus: Aetia. Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary, Oxford. HGK Herzog, R. (1928). Heilige Gesetze von Kos. Abhandlungen der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, Berlin. IG (1873-). Inscriptiones Graecae, Berlin. IK Blümel, W. (1992). Die Inschriften von Knidos I, Bonn. IThraceL Loukopoulou, L. D., Parissaki, M. G., Psoma, S., Zournatzi, A. (2005). Επιγραφές της Θράκης του Αιγαίου: Μεταξύ των Ποταμών Νέστου και Έβρου (Νομοί Ξάνθης, Ροδόπης και Έβρου), Athens. Keil Keil, H. (1874). Grammatici Latini VI, Leipzig. LIMC (1981-). Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Dusseldorf/Munich/Zurich. LSCG Sokolowski, F. (1969). Lois sacrées des cités grecques, Paris. LSJ Liddell, H. G., Scott, R. (1996). A Greek-English Lexicon, Revised and Augmented Throughout by H. S. Jones. Edited with Revised Supplement9, Oxford. M.-W. Merkelbach, R., West, M. L. (1967). (eds). Fragmenta Hesiodea, London. Mass. Massimilla, G. (1996–2010). (ed.). AITIA. Libri primo e secondo, Libro terzo e quarto, Pisa/Rome. Matth. Matthews, V. J. (1996). Antimachus of Colophon. Text and Commentary (Mnemosyne Supplements), Leiden/New York/Cologne. OGIS Dittenberger, W. (1903-1905). (ed.). Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae. Supplementum Sylloges Inscriptionum Graecarum I-II, Leipzig. 1 PEG Bernabè, A. (1996). Poetae Epici Graeci, Leipzig. Perry Perry, B. E. (1952). (ed). Aesopica. A Series of Texts Relating to Aesop or Ascribed to him or Closely Connected with the Literary Tradition that Bears his Name, Urbana. Pf. Pfeiffer, R. (1949-1953). (ed.). Callimachus I-II, Oxford. PMG Page, D. L. (1962). (ed.). Poetae Melici Graeci, Oxford. RE (1893-). Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart/Munich. Roscher Roscher, W. H. (1884-1937). Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie, Leipzig. Sb. Sbardella, L. (2000). Filita. Testimonianze e frammenti poetici. Introduzione, edizione e commento, Rome. SEG (1923-). Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, Leiden. SGO Merkerbach, R., Stauber, J. (1998-2004). (eds). Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten I-V, Munich/Leipzig. SH Lloyd-Jones, H., Parsons, P. J. (1983). (eds). Supplementum Hellenisticum, Berlin/New York. Sp. Spanoudakis, K. (2002). Philetas of Cos, Leiden/Boston/Cologne. ThesCRA (2004-2012). Thesaurus Cultus et Rituum Antiquorum I-VIII, Los Angeles. TrGF Snell, B., Kannicht, R., Radt, S. (1971-2009). (eds). Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta I-V, Gottingen. West West, M. L. (1989-1992). (ed.). Iambi et elegi Graeci I-II2, Oxford. References to ancient authors and ancient works are according to the abbreviations of the Oxford Classical Dictionary4, edited by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth (Oxford 2003), with the exception of Callimachus’ Hymns, which I abbreviate as H. 1, H. 2 etc. For papyri I use the abbreviations of the Duke Data Bank of Documentary Papyri, while for journals I follow the abbreviations of L’Année philologique. 2 Introduction The topic of the current study is Demeter’s presence in Hellenistic poetry. Demeter’s importance in Hellenistic poetry has been noted by a number of scholars who examined individual poems featuring the goddess,1 while certain studies on Demeter’s cult in Ptolemaic Egypt have indicated that Demeter held a very prominent role in the religion of the area. Callimachus’ Hymn to Demeter in particular has very recently attracted scholarly attention anew, as indicated by the articles of Giuseppetti (2012), Faulkner (2012) and Faraone (2012), each of them dealing with a different aspect of the poem,2 while Demeter’s cult in Ptolemaic Egypt has been the topic of a detailed treatment by Parca (2007). Nevertheless, the lack of a treatise entirely dedicated to Demeter’s appearance in
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Argonautica, Book 1;
    '^THE ARGONAUTICA OF GAIUS VALERIUS FLACCUS (SETINUS BALBUS BOOK I TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH PROSE WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY H. G. BLOMFIELD, M.A., I.C.S. LATE SCHOLAR OF EXETER COLLEGE, OXFORD OXFORD B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET 1916 NEW YORK LONGMANS GREEN & CO. FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET TO MY WIFE h2 ; ; ; — CANDIDO LECTORI Reader, I'll spin you, if you please, A tough yarn of the good ship Argo, And how she carried o'er the seas Her somewhat miscellaneous cargo; And how one Jason did with ease (Spite of the Colchian King's embargo) Contrive to bone the fleecy prize That by the dragon fierce was guarded, Closing its soporific eyes By spells with honey interlarded How, spite of favouring winds and skies, His homeward voyage was retarded And how the Princess, by whose aid Her father's purpose had been thwarted, With the Greek stranger in the glade Of Ares secretly consorted, And how his converse with the maid Is generally thus reported : ' Medea, the premature decease Of my respected parent causes A vacancy in Northern Greece, And no one's claim 's as good as yours is To fill the blank : come, take the lease. Conditioned by the following clauses : You'll have to do a midnight bunk With me aboard the S.S. Argo But there 's no earthly need to funk, Or think the crew cannot so far go : They're not invariably drunk, And you can act as supercargo. — CANDIDO LECTORI • Nor should you very greatly care If sometimes you're a little sea-sick; There's no escape from mal-de-mer, Why, storms have actually made me sick : Take a Pope-Roach, and don't despair ; The best thing simply is to be sick.' H.
    [Show full text]
  • VU Research Portal
    VU Research Portal The impact of empire on market prices in Babylon Pirngruber, R. 2012 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Pirngruber, R. (2012). The impact of empire on market prices in Babylon: in the Late Achaemenid and Seleucid periods, ca. 400 - 140 B.C. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 THE IMPACT OF EMPIRE ON MARKET PRICES IN BABYLON in the Late Achaemenid and Seleucid periods, ca. 400 – 140 B.C. R. Pirngruber VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT THE IMPACT OF EMPIRE ON MARKET PRICES IN BABYLON in the Late Achaemenid and Seleucid periods, ca. 400 – 140 B.C. ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof.dr.
    [Show full text]
  • Macedonian Kings, Egyptian Pharaohs the Ptolemaic Family In
    Department of World Cultures University of Helsinki Helsinki Macedonian Kings, Egyptian Pharaohs The Ptolemaic Family in the Encomiastic Poems of Callimachus Iiro Laukola ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be publicly discussed, by due permission of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki in auditorium XV, University Main Building, on the 23rd of September, 2016 at 12 o’clock. Helsinki 2016 © Iiro Laukola 2016 ISBN 978-951-51-2383-1 (paperback.) ISBN 978-951-51-2384-8 (PDF) Unigrafia Helsinki 2016 Abstract The interaction between Greek and Egyptian cultural concepts has been an intense yet controversial topic in studies about Ptolemaic Egypt. The present study partakes in this discussion with an analysis of the encomiastic poems of Callimachus of Cyrene (c. 305 – c. 240 BC). The success of the Ptolemaic Dynasty is crystallized in the juxtaposing of the different roles of a Greek ǴdzȅǻǽǷȏȄ and of an Egyptian Pharaoh, and this study gives a glimpse of this political and ideological endeavour through the poetry of Callimachus. The contribution of the present work is to situate Callimachus in the core of the Ptolemaic court. Callimachus was a proponent of the Ptolemaic rule. By reappraising the traditional Greek beliefs, he examined the bicultural rule of the Ptolemies in his encomiastic poems. This work critically examines six Callimachean hymns, namely to Zeus, to Apollo, to Artemis, to Delos, to Athena and to Demeter together with the Victory of Berenice, the Lock of Berenice and the Ektheosis of Arsinoe. Characterized by ambiguous imagery, the hymns inspect the ruptures in Greek thought during the Hellenistic age.
    [Show full text]
  • Naming the Extrasolar Planets
    Naming the extrasolar planets W. Lyra Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, K¨onigstuhl 17, 69177, Heidelberg, Germany [email protected] Abstract and OGLE-TR-182 b, which does not help educators convey the message that these planets are quite similar to Jupiter. Extrasolar planets are not named and are referred to only In stark contrast, the sentence“planet Apollo is a gas giant by their assigned scientific designation. The reason given like Jupiter” is heavily - yet invisibly - coated with Coper- by the IAU to not name the planets is that it is consid- nicanism. ered impractical as planets are expected to be common. I One reason given by the IAU for not considering naming advance some reasons as to why this logic is flawed, and sug- the extrasolar planets is that it is a task deemed impractical. gest names for the 403 extrasolar planet candidates known One source is quoted as having said “if planets are found to as of Oct 2009. The names follow a scheme of association occur very frequently in the Universe, a system of individual with the constellation that the host star pertains to, and names for planets might well rapidly be found equally im- therefore are mostly drawn from Roman-Greek mythology. practicable as it is for stars, as planet discoveries progress.” Other mythologies may also be used given that a suitable 1. This leads to a second argument. It is indeed impractical association is established. to name all stars. But some stars are named nonetheless. In fact, all other classes of astronomical bodies are named.
    [Show full text]
  • Marathon 2,500 Years Edited by Christopher Carey & Michael Edwards
    MARATHON 2,500 YEARS EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER CAREY & MICHAEL EDWARDS INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON MARATHON – 2,500 YEARS BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES SUPPLEMENT 124 DIRECTOR & GENERAL EDITOR: JOHN NORTH DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS: RICHARD SIMPSON MARATHON – 2,500 YEARS PROCEEDINGS OF THE MARATHON CONFERENCE 2010 EDITED BY CHRISTOPHER CAREY & MICHAEL EDWARDS INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON 2013 The cover image shows Persian warriors at Ishtar Gate, from before the fourth century BC. Pergamon Museum/Vorderasiatisches Museum, Berlin. Photo Mohammed Shamma (2003). Used under CC‐BY terms. All rights reserved. This PDF edition published in 2019 First published in print in 2013 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Available to download free at http://www.humanities-digital-library.org ISBN: 978-1-905670-81-9 (2019 PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/1019.9781905670819 ISBN: 978-1-905670-52-9 (2013 paperback edition) ©2013 Institute of Classical Studies, University of London The right of contributors to be identified as the authors of the work published here has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Designed and typeset at the Institute of Classical Studies TABLE OF CONTENTS Introductory note 1 P. J. Rhodes The battle of Marathon and modern scholarship 3 Christopher Pelling Herodotus’ Marathon 23 Peter Krentz Marathon and the development of the exclusive hoplite phalanx 35 Andrej Petrovic The battle of Marathon in pre-Herodotean sources: on Marathon verse-inscriptions (IG I3 503/504; Seg Lvi 430) 45 V.
    [Show full text]
  • Goddess Euthenia • Euthenia Is Considered of Alexandrian Origin, Carrying Traits That Represent the Combination of the Egyptian Religion and the Roman Religion
    ﺟﺎﻣﻌﺔ اﻟﻣﻧﯾﺎ ﻛﻠﯾﺔ اﻟﺳﯾﺎﺣﺔ واﻟﻔﻧﺎدق ﻗﺳم اﻻرﺷﺎد اﻟﺳﯾﺎﺣﻲ اﻟﻔرﻗﺔ اﻟﺛﺎﻟﺛﺔ ﻣﻘرر ارﺷﺎد ﺳﯾﺎﺣﻲ ﺗطﺑﯾﻘﻲ ٤ ﻛود اﻟﻣﻘرر: رس ٣٢٧ Selected pieces from the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria Lecture 2: - Statue of Nilus - Statue of Euthenia د. ﻓرج ﻋﺑﯾد زﻛﻲ ﻣدرس اﻻرﺷﺎد اﻟﺳﯾﺎﺣﻲ ﺑﻛﻠﯾﺔ اﻟﺳﯾﺎﺣﺔ واﻟﻔﻧﺎدق - ﺟﺎﻣﻌﺔ اﻟﻣﻧﯾﺎ وﺳﯾﻠﺔ اﻟﺗواﺻل: [email protected] Selected Pieces from the Graeco- Roman Museum in Alexandria Statue of Nilus Identification card: Material: marble Date: Roman Period, 2nd cent. AD Place of Discovery: Alexandria, Sidi Bishr. The Nile god in ancient Egypt: There was no Nile god in the ancient Egyptian civilization, but there was a deification of the annual flooding; the god Hapy. The ancient Egyptian did not worship the Nile in its abstract form, but sanctified it for being the main source of prosperity and land fertility in the country. God Nilus In Greaeco-Roman Period: The Greeks and Romans on the other hand did worship rivers which they personified as aged deities representing them with full heads of long locks and flowing beards and mustaches, often depicted, as here, reclining. Several details allude to the role of the River Nile personified as Nilus, the source of bounty and prosperity. In the Graeco- Roman Period, Nilus became the Nile god The Nile Inundation in ancient Egypt and Graeco- Roman Period: The increase in the level of the Nile was measured by an arm (1 arm = 0.52 m). This was done by means of the Nilometers that spread throughout Egypt. The Nilometers were found in some important temples. The most famous Nilometers in Egypt were the one found at Elephantine Island, that at Edfu Temple, and the one at Serapium Temple in Alexandria.
    [Show full text]
  • Fall 2018 Volume 45 Issue 1
    Fall 2018 Volume 45 Issue 1 3 Matthew S. Brogdon “Who Would Be Free, Themselves Must Strike the Blow”: Revolt and Rhetoric in Douglass’s Heroic Slave and Melville’s Benito Cereno 25 Ariel Helfer Socrates’s Political Legacy: Xenophon’s Socratic Characters in Hellenica I and II 49 Lorraine Smith Pangle The Radicalness of Strauss’s On Tyranny 67 David Polansky & With Steel or Poison: Daniel Schillinger Machiavelli on Conspiracy Book Reviews: 87 Ingrid Ashida Persian Letters by Montesquieu 93 Kevin J. Burns Legacies of Losing in American Politics by Jeffrey Tulis and Nicole Mellow 97 Peter Busch Montesquieu and the Despotic Ideas of Europe by Vickie B. Sullivan 103 Rodrigo Chacón The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World by Oona A. Hathaway and Scott J. Shapiro 109 Bernard J. Dobski Shakespeare’s Thought: Unobserved Details and Unsuspected Depths in Thirteen Plays by David Lowenthal 119 Elizabeth C’ de Baca Eastman The Woman Question in Plato’s “Republic” by Mary Townsend 125 Michael P. Foley The Fragility of Consciousness: Faith, Reason, and the Human Good by Frederick Lawrence 129 Raymond Hain The New Testament: A Translation by David Bentley Hart 135 Thomas R. Pope Walker Percy and the Politics of the Wayfarer by Brian A. Smith Doubting Progress: Two Reviews 141 Lewis Hoss A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics 147 Eno Trimçev by Matthew W. Slaboch ©2018 Interpretation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of the contents may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • Ovid's Metamorphoses Translated by Anthony S. Kline1
    OVID'S METAMORPHOSES TRANSLATED BY 1 ANTHONY S. KLINE EDITED, COMPILED, AND ANNOTATED BY RHONDA L. KELLEY Figure 1 J. M. W. Turner, Ovid Banished from Rome, 1838. 1 http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Ovhome.htm#askline; the footnotes are the editor’s unless otherwise indicated; for clarity’s sake, all names have been standardized. The Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso (Ovid) was published in 8 C.E., the same year Ovid was banished from Rome by Caesar Augustus. The exact circumstances surrounding Ovid’s exile are a literary mystery. Ovid himself claimed that he was exiled for “a poem and a mistake,” but he did not name the poem or describe the mistake beyond saying that he saw something, the significance of which went unnoticed by him at the time he saw it. Though Ovid had written some very scandalous poems, it is entirely possible that this satirical epic poem was the reason Augustus finally decided to get rid of the man who openly criticized him and flouted his moral reforms. In the Metamorphoses Ovid recounts stories of transformation, beginning with the creation of the world and extending into his own lifetime. It is in some ways, Ovid’s answer to Virgil’s deeply patriotic epic, The Aeneid, which Augustus himself had commissioned. Ovid’s masterpiece is the epic Augustus did not ask for and probably did not want. It is an ambitious, humorous, irreverent romp through the myths and legends and even the history of Greece and Rome. This anthology presents Books I and II in their entirety.
    [Show full text]
  • Collins Magic in the Ancient Greek World.Pdf
    9781405132381_1_pre.qxd 30/10/2007 12:09 Page i Magic in the Ancient Greek World 9781405132381_1_pre.qxd 30/10/2007 12:09 Page ii Blackwell Ancient Religions Ancient religious practice and belief are at once fascinating and alien for twenty-first-century readers. There was no Bible, no creed, no fixed set of beliefs. Rather, ancient religion was characterized by extraordinary diversity in belief and ritual. This distance means that modern readers need a guide to ancient religious experience. Written by experts, the books in this series provide accessible introductions to this central aspect of the ancient world. Published Magic in the Ancient Greek World Derek Collins Religion in the Roman Empire James B. Rives Ancient Greek Religion Jon D. Mikalson Forthcoming Religion of the Roman Republic Christopher McDonough and Lora Holland Death, Burial and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt Steven Snape Ancient Greek Divination Sarah Iles Johnston 9781405132381_1_pre.qxd 30/10/2007 12:09 Page iii Magic in the Ancient Greek World Derek Collins 9781405132381_1_pre.qxd 30/10/2007 12:09 Page iv © 2008 by Derek Collins blackwell publishing 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Derek Collins to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
    [Show full text]
  • The Elements of Comedy and Parody in the Dionysiaca of Nonnus
    SYMBOLAE PHILOLOGORUM POSNANIENSIUM GRAECAE ET LATINAE XXVII/3 • 2017 pp. 59–71. ISSN 0302-7384 dOI: 10.14746/sppgl.2017.XXVII.3.6 Anna Maria Lasek Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań THE ELEMENTS OF COMEdY ANd PAROdY IN THE DIONYSIACA OF NONNUS abstraCt. Lasek Anna Maria, The elements of comedy and parody in the dionysiaca of Nonnus. In this article the author presents the elements of comedy and parody in the dionysiaca of Nonnus. The analysis of the passages excerpted from the dionysiaka shows that the composition of Nonnus’ poem is based on the principle of generic variety. keywords: Nonnus; dionysiaka; parody; Ares; Aphrodite. Scholars agree that literary genres have a certain momentum, and that they change. Any author within a genre develops and transforms it to create a work combining traditional genre features with new and unexpected elements.1 This way, every implementation of a genre means bringing it up to date and sets anew its boundaries. This phenomenon is particularly clearly visible in a work written by Nonnus of Panopolis in late Antiquity. As its author highlights in the proemium, this work is based on the principle of poetic variety – varietas (ποικιλία) This predilection for variety was reflected in the poet’s style, the richness of synonyms appearing in the dionysiaca; his striving for diversification in presenting characters, situations and things; and the composition of the work.2 Undoubtedly, as results from the same principle of diversity – ποικιλία3 the term epos is not sufficient for dionysiaca. In the entire body of the work, one can trace elements of various genres, and even entire passages bearing their characteristics so clearly that scholars have not hesitated to identify them with idyll, epigram, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • Calendar of Roman Events
    Introduction Steve Worboys and I began this calendar in 1980 or 1981 when we discovered that the exact dates of many events survive from Roman antiquity, the most famous being the ides of March murder of Caesar. Flipping through a few books on Roman history revealed a handful of dates, and we believed that to fill every day of the year would certainly be impossible. From 1981 until 1989 I kept the calendar, adding dates as I ran across them. In 1989 I typed the list into the computer and we began again to plunder books and journals for dates, this time recording sources. Since then I have worked and reworked the Calendar, revising old entries and adding many, many more. The Roman Calendar The calendar was reformed twice, once by Caesar in 46 BC and later by Augustus in 8 BC. Each of these reforms is described in A. K. Michels’ book The Calendar of the Roman Republic. In an ordinary pre-Julian year, the number of days in each month was as follows: 29 January 31 May 29 September 28 February 29 June 31 October 31 March 31 Quintilis (July) 29 November 29 April 29 Sextilis (August) 29 December. The Romans did not number the days of the months consecutively. They reckoned backwards from three fixed points: The kalends, the nones, and the ides. The kalends is the first day of the month. For months with 31 days the nones fall on the 7th and the ides the 15th. For other months the nones fall on the 5th and the ides on the 13th.
    [Show full text]
  • One God Three Greek Experiments in Oneness* 1
    CHAPTER THREE ONE GOD THREE GREEK EXPERIMENTS IN ONENESS* Ik hou niet van ‘één.’ ‘Eén’ is zo’n eenzaam woord (I do not like ‘one’. ‘One’ is such a lonesome word). Liselot (5 year) ὅθεν καὶ τῶν κατὰ τὸν βίον οἱ μὲν ἕνα φασὶν εἶναι θεόν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὺς καὶ διαφόρους ταῖς μορφαῖς (Hence ordinary people differ also, some saying that there is one god, others that there are many gods and of various shapes). Sext. Emp. Pyr. 3.219 1. Introduction Ancient Greek religion was, as we have seen in our first chapter, unashamedly polytheistic. Hence the subject of the present chapter, that of ‘oneness’ in Greek religion Archaic, Classical and Hellenis- tic, may come as a surprise. I will discuss three Greek modes of by- passing, negotiating, reconciling, in short of coping with the alarming complexity of divine manifestations. The three relevant sections are entitled: “One and many,” “Many is one,” and “One is the god.” The first concerns the Archaic, the last the Hellenistic period, the second discusses a phenomenon that can be found throughout Greek history. All three are ‘experiments in oneness’, which, on the face of it, attempt to redefine a diversity of phenomena as being basically a unity. I hope to show, however, that none of these theologies aims at fusing the poly- theistic plurality itself into one unifying system or structure. Rather, in each of them, though in singularly different ways, the plurality and * This title is both an indication of what this chapter is about and an allusion to my book TER UNUS (1990), on which the third section of the present chapter leans heavily and to which in this chapter I shall refer by its title in order to avoid an irritat- ing repetition of ‘Versnel 1990’.
    [Show full text]